While the world as a whole may be more technologically advanced than ever before, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has outlined 14 Grand Challenges that engineers should focus on to improve life on the planet. Learn about the Grand Challenges at www.engineeringchallenges.org and tell us which challenge is most important, and why. (250 word limit)


I think the most important of the 14 Grand Engineering Challenges is reverse engineering the human brain in order to get a better sense of how the human mind functions. By that, I mean those hidden dimensions of the mind that are not purely physiological. How do we store trauma? Memory? Joy? How do we intuitively know something? Is there a capacity to understand ourselves through the limitless potential of our minds? How does the brain process bodily harm or disease? How does it understand the injured body?
	Discovering the workings of the mind could help us understand how to reduce an individual’s pain and increase their capacity for a fuller life. Understanding the brain better could reveal ways to better understand current modern mental health issues such as depression or neuroses, problems of the aging mind such as Alzheimer’s disease.
	Should we reverse engineer the brain, it would be plausible to turn the human brain into software. But that is both dangerous and unethical. Doing so would strip away the small things that make us humans - to feel joy, pain, and compassion, just to name a few. As we move swiftly towards a more engineered future where the difference between man and machine is shrinking, reverse engineering the brain will help us understand what makes us truly human and why we cannot and should not become robots.